The ten-digit North American Numbering Plan (NANP) currently used by the United States and 19 other countries is rapidly being depleted. Management of this resource is impaired by a lack of uniform data. Under the Communications Act of 1934, as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was given “exclusive jurisdiction over those portions of the North American Numbering Plan that pertain to the United States.” Pursuant to that authority, the FCC conducted a rulemaking that, among other things, addressed regular reporting on numbering resources used by United States telecommunications carriers.
The FCC appointed an agency, known as the North American Numbering Plan Administrator (NANPA), to monitor numbering resources utilized by all telecommunications carriers using the resources and to project the dates of area code and North American Numbering Plan exhaust. In their duties, NANPA created a numbering utilization report that telecommunications carriers are to submit semi-annually. The report is known as the Numbering Resource Utilization/Forecast (NRUF) Report.
The NRUF Report includes a number of different forms that provide NANPA with information as to the usage of telecommunications allotted telephone numbers. As understood in the telecommunications industry, each telecommunications carrier is allotted a certain number of telephone numbers in blocks of 10,000, which is generally subdivided into ten blocks of a thousand. Ten-digit telephone numbers include a (i) numbering plan area (NPA) (i.e., area code), which is three digits, (ii) central office code (NXX), which is also three digits, and (iii) thousands digit block or thousands block (i.e., the first digit of the last four digits of a telephone number). Telecommunications carriers provide telephone numbers to customers from these blocks of a thousand numbers. As a thousands block is filled, it is considered to be exhausted. Some thousands digit blocks become filled while others become empty depending on how the telecommunications carrier customer base changes. The telecommunications carrier reports the existing usage and forecasts future usage of the telephone numbers in the NRUF Report.
One problem that exists with the NRUF Report is the time necessary to collect and process the information to report. Telecommunications carriers generally have many divisions, many central offices, thousands of thousands digit blocks, and millions of customers. Managing this information and reporting it can take several man-weeks for producing each NRUF Report. Another problem that exists is that there is no standard method for forecasting exhaustion of a thousands digit block
Another problem that exists for telecommunications providers is the requirement for donating thousands blocks. As specified by the FCC, “[t]he FCC permits service providers to maintain up to a six-month inventory [of thousands blocks]. Any blocks (less than ten percent contaminated) in your inventory that you do not anticipate using in the next six months should be donated to the pool.” (Pooling NeuStar®, Sep. 27, 2005, page 1. “Contamination occurs when at least one telephone number within a thousands block of telephone numbers is not available for assignment to end users or customers. Blocks contaminated up to and including 10 percent are eligible for donation. For purposes of this provision, a telephone number is ‘not available for assignment’ if it is classified as an administrative, aging, assignment, intermediate, or reserved as defined in FCC rules (FCC 00-104, §52.7(h)).” (Thousands-Block Number (NXX-X) Pooling Administration Guidelines (TBPAG), Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions, May 5, 2006, p. 59). If a company fails to comply with the regulations, the company can be fined or otherwise risk its operating license. The reason for donating the thousands blocks is to enable other telecommunications companies servicing a particular region to have sufficient telephone number inventory to service their customers.
A problem that telecommunications companies have in complying with the pooling regulations is available processes to determine thousands blocks of telephone number to donate. Conventional processes are limited to time consuming, manual processes. What is needed is an efficient process for determining thousands blocks to donate to the pooling administrator.